


Drown Out My Dreams

by Star_Nymph



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asperger Inquisitor, F/M, Fluff, Night Terrors, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9898994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Nymph/pseuds/Star_Nymph
Summary: "Drown out my dreams! Keep me from remembering whatever wants me to remember it!" --Based on a scene from The Last Unicorn.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is such self indulgent 2am crap and I am well aware; it's super embarrassing like Jesus me, cater to yourself a little more why don't you? I'm sorry if it's not all that good--this is my first time attempting to write Cullen and I'm absolutely positive I didn't do all that of a good job. This is also my first time writing someone with Asperger's Syndrome and despite doing my best to research it and write it well, I can't say if I succeeded. If I didn't, I'm sorry if it comes off as disrespectful, as it was not my intention. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this silliness.
> 
> If you have any comments or helpful tips please feel free to write something. I'll definitely appreciate the feedback! Thank you for reading!

At the mouth of the dark doorway, she swerved with the moonlight trapped in her hair and the glint of her blade at Cullen’s throat. The haze her eyes were more so, caught somewhere in between sleep and awakening, but somehow they were wild and frantic as they stared through him, through walls, perhaps into the nothingness of the sky. 

A hollow look. Cullen knew it well, recognized it as the eyes which stared at him in his mirror, but if it frightened him as it would many lesser men, he did not show it. He had caught the blade with ease, leather gloves splitting at his palm, holding it still so she could not pull it back in her frenzy. 

“Who are you? Are you a demon? Another to mock me?” She demanded in her hushed, breathless tone. It quaked under its own strength, in the sort of way one might expect the ground to sound right before it cracked in two.

Cullen swallowed and his voice rang clear through the stones. “Inquisitor, it is I; Cullen. Do not recognize me?” He pulled the knife, and with it her, only inches closer, careful not to loom but knowing she needed a nudge. Something to cut through the fog. Enough. Give her enough. He spoke again, softer so this time. “I'm _Cullen_.”

Her head tilted as a skittish beast would and she looked about her at the whispers which only existed in her mind. Eurydice squeezed the hilt of the knife and shivered as her always wandering glance finally focused on him. 

“Cullen…” She whispered, speaking the name as if she never heard it before. Her eyes did not clear–as they never cleared, always clouded, always far off–but they brightened as she recognized him and blinked slowly. “… _Commander_ Cullen…” 

Eurydice took the knife away and held it to her stomach. Her head lobbed around as if her neck could not hold it up any longer and once more her eyes left his face and stared beyond him. 

Still, he sighed and shifted his feet from right to left. “You were dreaming, Inquisitor. No demons will haunt you in these halls.” _–if I can help it_ , he wanted to tack on, but he would not go on. Save him some dignity, he told himself, even right now.

It didn’t seem she heard the last part, however. Eurydice’s hands went were they would always go–into her hair, combing through it nervously, viciously, almost tearing at her beautiful waving locks–and her eyebrows knitted together in a pained expression.  

“’Were’, you said? But I always dreaming…even when I am awake.” She said in a thin, childish voice that seemed to choke her. She pulled her hair again and moaned , “It is never finished.”

Cullen wanted to be brave. Steel over took his heart when battle greeted him; darkspawn, mage, templar, demon, nature had taught him to withstand them just as nature taught him to breathe the air. It was duty, his promise, to give this woman guidance in her weakest moments and falter not. But here, there was no battle and no sword will aid him where only invisible enemies lay. All Cullen had was his tongue, his ears, and his hands–and he had never been quite good at using either of those things. 

What plagued her he knew well, yet he could not steel himself enough to face it with her. Cullen stumbled, instead, when Eurydice began to walk backward, shaking her head and hiding her face.

“Forgive me. I will not trouble you with this, Commander.”

The formality wounded him deep; he winced. He could see a wall being built around her, locking him out as he would do with her–and it hurt to be on the outside of that for once. 

Eurydice began to turn and run back up the stairs, but Cullen reached out and without thinking called out, “Eurydice.” The name stumbled awkwardly out of him–in his mind, it was easy to speak it, to run over the letters and each syllable carelessly, but on his tongue it didn’t work and hearing it out loud made his ears turn red.

But she halted and, cautiously, turned back towards him. Cullen wasn’t sure but he thought he saw something akin to fear flash across her face. 

“Trouble me. Please, trouble me.” He said, stepping closer to her. “I…I know…I understand how nightma–how dreams can weigh on one’s mind. I can listen…I can…I can help you through…”

Eurydice closed her eyes and shook her head, a small grimace appearing on her face. “Not my dreams…Yours and mine are different–and I do not want talk where they might hear.”

 “You would be surprised how similar they might be.” He said and then added in a softer voice. “Eurydice. Please. I wish you wanted something of me”

The elf’s shoulders tensed under the light material of nightgown as she picked her head up. Her hand left her hair and clenched over her heart, bunching up the cloth as if trying to ripe it from her chest. 

“Drown out my dreams!” She suddenly spoke and Cullen realized that she was _pleading_ with him. “If it pleases you so, then speak and keep whatever it is that haunts me far from my mind so that I may know peace–even for a moment.”

And what could he do in all his wide eyed wonder but numbly extend his hand towards her? "Then I will gladly try.” His voice trembled but Cullen smiled reassuringly–in the way a boy does when he’s been acknowledged and given a task; silly but shy and curling all the way up to his eyes. 

He held it towards her for what felt like eternity, waiting for her to stop marveling at his hand and to give him a sign–even a small one–that this was enough. Slowly, Eurydice let go of her nightgown and took silent step after step towards him until she could slid her hand across his and grip it with surprising strength. 

She was still staring at his hand, as if she couldn’t tell if it was real. Or that she truly was dreaming and he was part of it now.

But he refused to be any less than he was and with a gently tug, he roused her from stupor and started to lead her down the stairs. 

As she followed, clumsily staggering after him, her fingers moved and found home entwined between his. Where he would take her, neither of them were sure, but they went anyway.

And as they went, it surprised them both when Cullen started to sing. 


End file.
